Working In These Times http://inthesetimes.com/working/
"Working In These Times" is dedicated to providing independent and incisive coverage of the labor movement and the struggles of workers to obtain safe, healthy and just workplaces.Foreign Trade Rules Are Killing Jobs and Communities. They Need Fixing Now.http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17796/foreign_trade_rules_are_killing_jobs_and_communities._they_need_fixing_now/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17796/foreign_trade_rules_are_killing_jobs_and_communities._they_need_fixing_now/Sucker punched by massive, illegally subsidized imports, American steel producers laid off thousands of workers in bedrock communities from Ohio and Illinois to Texas and Alabama.

That’s in just the past three months.

The families of furloughed workers are struggling to pay mortgage bills. The communities, losing tax dollars, are canceling needed road work. The companies are talking about the similarities between now and the 1990s when half of the nation’s steel firms disappeared. Members of the Congressional Steel Caucus are worrying about the effect on national security if America can’t make its own steel for guns and tanks.

]]>Leo Gerard, United Steelworkers PresidentTue, 31 Mar 2015 15:49:16 +0000As CTU and Chuy Garcia Endorse $15/hr Contract Demand, Fight for 15 Goes Beyond Fast Foodhttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17788/chicago_teachers_union_fight_for_15_chuy_garcia/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17788/chicago_teachers_union_fight_for_15_chuy_garcia/The Fight for 15 and the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) have joined together to demand that Chicago Public Schools (CPS) employees should earn at least $15 an hour, including contract workers such as the janitors provided by Aramark in a controversial privatization of school sanitation that has provoked protests by public school principals.

At a press conference on Wednesday announcing CTU's demand, Chicago mayoral candidate Jesus “Chuy” Garcia pledged that he would support the $15 wage. “I stand here today as someone who understands the plight of thousands and thousands of Chicagoans in Chicago neighborhoods who need to increase their wages,” said Garcia.

The CTU announced it would include a demand for all CPS employees to receive a $15 per hour minimum wage in their contract proposal to the Chicago Board of Education. The proposed language reads: “The CTU will require the BOARD to report which employees do not earn at least a $15/hour minimum wage and to then require that all CTU members must earn at least $15/hr. and that all CPS subcontractors must earn at least $15/hr. and/or that all CPS employees must earn at least $15/hr.”

]]>David MobergWed, 25 Mar 2015 21:04:27 +0000Court Steps in to #SaveH2B. But Is the U.S. Guestworker Program Worth Saving?http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17785/guestworker_law/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17785/guestworker_law/On March 18, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced it would resume processing applications for the H-2B guestworker program after a two-week suspension. The DOL abruptly halted processing H-2B applications earlier this month after a Florida federal district court ruling left the program without any formal regulations; the agency began processing applications again when the court granted its request to stay the ruling until April 15 to allow the guestworker program to continue. The announcement prompted a collective sigh of relief among employers and workers who depend on H-2B jobs. ]]>Rachel LubanTue, 24 Mar 2015 18:33:50 +0000How Working Less Can Help Prevent Climate Catastrophe and Promote Women’s Equalityhttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17784/labor_feminism_climate/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17784/labor_feminism_climate/This piece first appeared at Labor Notes.

In the face of looming ecological catastrophe, can unions help restructure work itself? And what’s gender inequality got to do with it? We posed these questions to Tom Malleson, assistant professor of Social Justice and Peace Studies at King’s University College at Western University in London, Ontario, and author of After Occupy: Economic Democracy in the 21st Century.

One, Emanuel is widely perceived as anti-worker and anti-union while being a close ally to the city's financial elites. (He used to work as an investment banker, after all.)

Two, he's widely acknowledged as being a jerk. He sends dead fish to people he's angry at, he yells "fuck you" to teachers union leaders, he allegedly screams in mental health activists' faces, stories about public photos with him include a description of his eye contact as like a "deathly vampire stare."

Emanuel has tried to mend that image a bit lately, acknowledging he isn't the nicest guy in Chicago politics. But no matter how fuzzy his sweater, he's still viewed as a prickly character. And despite some local unions' words to the contrary, he's seen by many as an anti-labor "Mayor 1%."

How can those two problems be solved ahead of Emanuel's April 7 showdown with progressive challenger Jesus "Chuy" Garcia? The hospitality workers union UNITE HERE Local 1 has an idea: an ad campaign with workers emphasizing "Rahm Love."

]]>Micah UetrichtMon, 23 Mar 2015 20:40:00 +0000As Scathing SEIU Ad Hits Rahm Emanuel Where It Hurts, Chuy Garcia Endorses Financial Transaction Taxhttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17781/seiu_rahm_emanuel_chuy_garcia_financial_transaction_tax/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17781/seiu_rahm_emanuel_chuy_garcia_financial_transaction_tax/A new ad attacking Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s record hit airwaves on Friday, skewering the mayor’s policies on education, public safety, taxes and corporate cronyism. The ad comes on the same day Emanuel's progressive challenger Jesus “Chuy” Garcia announced for the first time his support of a national tax on financial transactions aimed at big banks.

The ad, funded by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Illinois Council PAC, comes just over two weeks ahead of the historic mayoral runoff election between Emanuel and Garcia on April 7, in what is widely being viewed as a national referendum on neoliberal, corporate-centric governance—and the future of the Democratic Party.

]]>Miles Kampf-LassinFri, 20 Mar 2015 23:43:18 +0000Obama Promises Rare Veto As House Votes to Slow Down Union Elections, Curb NLRBhttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17779/obama_promises_rare_veto_as_house_votes_to_slow_down_union_elections_curb_n/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17779/obama_promises_rare_veto_as_house_votes_to_slow_down_union_elections_curb_n/In a show of electoral strength by anti-union Republicans in Congress, the U.S. House of Representatives easily passed legislation Thursday to curb an effort by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to ease procedures for union organizing. Passed by the Senate earlier this month, the measure now heads to the White House, where President Barack Obama has promised a veto.]]>Bruce VailFri, 20 Mar 2015 20:34:00 +0000“My Boss Would Yell At Me Every Day Until I Cried”: Lean Production at Volkswagen’s Tennessee Planthttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17777/my_boss_would_yell_at_me_every_day_until_i_cried_lean_production_at_tenness/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17777/my_boss_would_yell_at_me_every_day_until_i_cried_lean_production_at_tenness/This story first appeared at Labor Notes.

Amanda (not her real name) was hired fresh out of high school to work on the Volkswagen assembly line. But after two years in the Chattanooga plant, she had to go on leave to protect her health.

“I had a boss who would yell at me every day until I cried,” she said. “I talked to H.R. about it. They would not help me at all. They would not bring witnesses in even though I had witnesses, and I kept a notebook and they wouldn’t look at the notebook.”

Amanda says her floor supervisor, a former Toyota group leader, publicly humiliated her until she finally broke down. “One day while he was yelling at me, I told him that I am going to kill myself if you keep talking to me like this. He sent me to the medical bay. The medical bay put me on short-term disability.

“I saw a therapist who said I was fine as long as I was moved to another line. The Volkswagen doctor refused to clear me.” Amanda never returned to work at VW, believing it easier to find another job than to fight the company.

Her story is no anomaly. It shows the system is working as intended.

]]>Chris BrooksThu, 19 Mar 2015 21:02:57 +0000Target Becomes the Latest Big Box Retailer to Raise Workers’ Wageshttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17776/target_is_the_latest_big_box_retailer_to_raise_wages/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17776/target_is_the_latest_big_box_retailer_to_raise_wages/Starting next month, Target will raise its minimum wage to $9 an hour. Sound familiar? That's because Target’s decision comes just one month after its competitor Walmart said it would raise its starting wage to $9 and eventually $10 per hour. T.J. Maxx and Marshalls have also announced a new $9 an hour base. These minimum wage increases reflect an improving economy and the impact of widespread protest through campaigns like the fast food strikes and OUR Walmart. ]]>Arielle ZiontsThu, 19 Mar 2015 18:41:42 +0000At UN Conference, Domestic Workers Push for International Labor Standardshttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17775/domestic_workers_un/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17775/domestic_workers_un/Between March 9 and March 20, member states and global NGOs gathered at the United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York City to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action, the key international policy document aiming to achieve gender equality. Coinciding with the conference, the Clinton and Gates Foundations released No Ceilings: The Full Participation Report, which traces women’s demonstrable progress in global health and education since 1995, as well as their insufficient gains in economic participation, leadership and security. Dignitaries, celebrities, and philanthropists gave speeches calling for “50-50 by 2030”—meaning full gender equality in the next in 15 years.

Mobilized at the conference was a group whose organized presence was simply non-existent two decades ago. Representatives from the fast-growing global domestic workers movement came to New York to pressure the international community for the ratification and implementation of labor standards that would impact more than 52 million domestic workers all over the world, 83% of whom are women.

]]>Rachel M. CohenThu, 19 Mar 2015 18:12:26 +0000Coders Are Becoming the Industrial Workers of the 21st Century. Will They Organize?http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17773/coders_are_becoming_the_industrial_workers_of_the_21st_century._will_they_o/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17773/coders_are_becoming_the_industrial_workers_of_the_21st_century._will_they_o/After graduating from college and moving away from his family and his hometown for the first time, Paul found his way into LaunchCode, a training and recruiting program for future coders. An artist, he dived enthusiastically into using code to alter and create images. After he completed the four-month class, LaunchCode placed him in a job at a marketing company that uses templates to build web pages for clients.

Particularly in the beginning of his time there, Paul worked long hours, sometimes round the clock, to meet deadlines, but the company provided coffee and energy drinks to keep him up so he could work and beer to bring him down so he could relax when he was done. He had no family in the town—an older, Midwestern industrial city trying to find the next big thing to replace its lost manufacturing base—and few friends, so he didn't have any other commitments that might conflict with the long hours. Once a month, he participated in an all-night weekend hackathon to further develop his coding skills.

Paul, which is not his real name, had hoped to stick with the job until the end of his first year. Then he'd quit and use his experience to find something better.

Paul's experience reflects changes in the American economy that will have the t-shirt-wearing coder with a computer replace the blue-collar wearing machine assembler with a wrench as the archetypal industrial worker. Industry groups predict the demand for coders will create one million new coding jobs by 2020.

]]>Peter DownsThu, 19 Mar 2015 17:01:25 +0000Thousands of New York City Teachers Protest Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Free Market Education Reformshttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17772/cuomo_budget_protests/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17772/cuomo_budget_protests/Last week, New York City teachers took to the streets in massive numbers to protest New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo, who has made no secret of his disdain for public school teachers, fired another salvo at public education with his 2015-2016 budget, which includes lifting the city’s charter school cap, tying teachers’ pay and retention to students’ test performance, and putting low performing schools into the hands of outside operators. In response, thousands of teachers and parents protested across almost 200 city schools.]]>Kevin SolariThu, 19 Mar 2015 16:27:15 +0000Unions Can’t Beat Right to Work Just By Calling It ‘Unfair’—They Must Fight for Everyonehttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17770/unions_cant_beat_right_to_work_just_by_calling_it_unfairthey_must_fight_for/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17770/unions_cant_beat_right_to_work_just_by_calling_it_unfairthey_must_fight_for/This post first appeared at Labor Notes.

Wisconsin is now the 25th state to adopt a so-called “right-to-work” law, which allows workers to benefit from collective bargaining without having to pay for it.

It joins Michigan and Indiana, which both adopted right to work in 2012. Similar initiatives, or variants, are spreading to Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico and West Virginia—and the National Right to Work Committee and the American Legislative Exchange Council probably have a well-developed list of additional targets.

Without aggressive action, the right-to-work tsunami will sweep more states. To defeat it, the first step is committing to fight back, rather than resigning ourselves to what some say is inevitable.

]]>Rand WilsonWed, 18 Mar 2015 18:02:25 +0000The GOP’s Latest Big Squeeze on American Workershttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17761/the_gops_latest_big_squeeze_on_american_workers/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17761/the_gops_latest_big_squeeze_on_american_workers/Gov. Scott Walker signed legislation last week to lower the wages of Wisconsin’s middle class workers. He wants pay cuts for hard working Wisconsinites. It’s part of a pattern established by Wisconsin’s Republican governor and the Republicans who control the state legislature. ]]>Leo Gerard, United Steelworkers PresidentTue, 17 Mar 2015 17:56:00 +0000DOL Freezes Guestworker Program After Court Rulinghttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17758/guestworker_program_frozen_after_court_ruling/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17758/guestworker_program_frozen_after_court_ruling/On March 4, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced, to little fanfare, the effective suspension of the H-2B federal guestworker program. The decision followed a Florida federal district court ruling that permanently blocked the DOL’s 2008 H-2B regulations, leaving the program without formal regulations. The court ruled in Perez v. Perez that the DOL lacks authority to regulate the H-2B program at all; the department responded by halting the activities that keep the program running.]]>Rachel LubanTue, 17 Mar 2015 15:55:44 +0000McDonald’s Management’s Response to Workers’ Burns on the Job: “Just Put Some Mustard On It”http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17754/mcdonalds_working_conditions1/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17754/mcdonalds_working_conditions1/If accusations of poverty wages, racial discrimination, sexual harassment and rampant wage theft weren’t enough, McDonald’s workers also say they bare the brunt of hazardous conditions on the job. On Monday, workers across 19 cities filed 28 health and safety complaints with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and other state agencies.]]>Lillian OsborneMon, 16 Mar 2015 20:10:19 +0000After 6-Week Strike, Oil Workers Say They Have “Won Vast Improvements in Safety and Staffing”http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17752/shell_oil_strike/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17752/shell_oil_strike/Negotiators from the United Steelworkers and Shell, the lead bargainer for unionized oil refining businesses, reached agreement on a new national contract on Thursday. It was a first big step towards ending the nation’s largest oil refining industry strike since 1980.]]>David MobergMon, 16 Mar 2015 18:53:37 +0000SEIU State Council Reverses Course, Endorses Jesus “Chuy” Garcia’s Run Against Rahm Emanuelhttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17747/seiu_state_council_reverses_course_endorses_jesus_chuy_garcias_run_against/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17747/seiu_state_council_reverses_course_endorses_jesus_chuy_garcias_run_against/The SEIU Illinois State Council has decided to endorse Jesus "Chuy" Garcia in his run against Rahm Emanuel for mayor of the City of Chicago, reversing the council's previous decision to remain neutral in the race—and overriding the desires of SEIU Local 73 to maintain that neutrality.]]>Micah UetrichtSat, 14 Mar 2015 19:00:45 +0000Los Angeles Teachers Poised to Strike for First Time in 26 Yearshttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17746/los_angeles_teachers_strike/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17746/los_angeles_teachers_strike/Los Angeles may be close to its first teachers strike in 26 years after its school district and the local teachers’ union declared that they would be unable to make progress on contract negotiations. Consequently, later this month California’s state labor board for public employees will be mediating between the two sides in the first of several sessions scheduled thus far.

United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), a union representing over 35,000 teachers in the area, is working under terms of a contract that expired in 2011 but still remains in effect. Negotiations for a new contract began last July upon the swearing-in of President Alex Caputo-Pearl. Caputo-Pearl is a member of the Progressive Educators for Action Caucus, which joined with other groups to form a slate, Union Power, that ran successfully on a platform of aggressive organizing based on community and member engagement, modeling its vision on the mobilization of the Chicago Teachers Union by its Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators.

]]>Mario VasquezFri, 13 Mar 2015 16:41:13 +0000Scott Walker and Bruce Rauner’s Assaults On Organized Labor Are Also an Opportunityhttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17739/scott_walker_and_bruce_rauner_are_assaulting_organized_laborbut_also_offeri/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17739/scott_walker_and_bruce_rauner_are_assaulting_organized_laborbut_also_offeri/The news out of the Midwest gets grimmer by day. Governor Scott Walker dramatically signed a right-to-work law on Monday. He called it “freedom-to-work legislation,” a blatantly transparent sales pitch for a bill that only Wisconsin’s hopelessly jerrymandered legislature could pass. And in neighboring Illinois, newly-elected Republican Governor Bruce Rauner has all but declared war on unionists. He has endorsed local right-to-work law ordinances and bans on public-employee union contributions to political campaigns and issued executive orders against the “fair-share fees” that cover the costs of unions protecting all employees’ wages, benefits, and workplace rights (regardless of whether or not they have joined the local).

But all of these attacks could do as much to enliven organized labor in this state as crush it.

]]>Elizabeth Tandy ShermerFri, 13 Mar 2015 13:30:35 +0000Michele Bachmann in ‘Sharknado 3’: Brought to You By ‘Strikenado’ Scabshttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17733/sharknado_3_strikenado_michelle_bachmann/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17733/sharknado_3_strikenado_michelle_bachmann/This week, the cottage industry of sites formerly dedicated to covering ex-Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s every move had reason to celebrate, as she resurfaced in Washington, filming a scene for Sharknado 3, the latest installment in the so-bad-it’s-actually-really-bad science fiction franchise. This wasn’t the first bit of conservative stunt-casting for the SyFy sequel: Ann Coulter will reportedly play the Vice President, right-wing celeb Bo Derek has a role and the producers sought out Oliver North and Colin Powell.

The Bachmann shoot got plenty of coverage everywhere you’d expect: the Huffington Post, the Guardian, Mediaite, Vox. What none of these news articles pointed out was the actual news: that the Sharknado movie in question is working with a scab crew after firing the entire production team when they sought union representation.

]]>David DayenThu, 12 Mar 2015 16:56:39 +0000Joseph Stiglitz on the Trans Pacific Partnership: “This Is A Big Deal”http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17732/joseph_stiglitz_on_the_trans_pacific_partnership_this_is_a_big_deal/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17732/joseph_stiglitz_on_the_trans_pacific_partnership_this_is_a_big_deal/Trade agreements are about more than business—they’re about who has final say in the way people around the world live, what they eat, how much they are paid, what medicines they can buy and whether they have jobs. Such agreements shape economic policies that impact billions of people. The discussions surrounding these agreements are far too important to done in secret. But that’s precisely how the Obama administration is trying to pass the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).]]>Alexandros OrphanidesThu, 12 Mar 2015 13:00:01 +0000In a Major Victory for Academic Labor, NYU Grad Students Win Contract, Narrowly Avert Strikehttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17730/in_a_major_victory_for_academic_labor_nyu_grad_students_win_contract_narrow/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17730/in_a_major_victory_for_academic_labor_nyu_grad_students_win_contract_narrow/In the early morning hours yesterday, New York University (NYU) administration and graduate students, represented by the Graduating Student Organizing Committee-United Auto Workers (GSOC-UAW) Local 2110, reached a last-minute agreement to avert a strike by graduate student instructors. Negotiations had been ongoing for over a year and GSOC had been vocal about its willingness to strike if a fair contract could not be reached. March 10 had been set as the start for a “limited strike” that would last through Friday, coinciding with the university’s midterm exams.]]>Kevin SolariWed, 11 Mar 2015 16:19:24 +0000Acknowledging “Ugly History of Racism” in Labor Movement, AFL-CIO Creates New Commission on Racehttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17728/acknowledging_ugly_history_of_racism_in_labor_movement_afl_cio_creates_new/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17728/acknowledging_ugly_history_of_racism_in_labor_movement_afl_cio_creates_new/Citing “an ugly history of racism in our own movement,” the leaders of the AFL-CIO voted in late February to create a new Labor Commission on Racial and Economic Justice to examine how issues of race can be better addressed by the confederation’s member unions.

The move was prompted by the riots and related conflicts last year in Ferguson, Missouri, which highlighted the stark racial and class divide in the St. Louis suburb, says Carmen Berkley, Director of the AFL-CIO’s office of Civil, Human and Women’s Rights. The shooting death of African-American teenager Michael Brown by white police officer Darren Wilson inflamed racial schisms nationwide, including within the labor movement, she says. But “we have to have a relationship with the [African-American] community,” that is an improvement over the status quo, Berkley tells InThese Times.

The U.S. drone war across much of the Greater Middle East and parts of Africa is in crisis and not because civilians are dying or the target list for that war or the right to wage it just about anywhere on the planet are in question in Washington. Something far more basic is at stake: drone pilots are quitting in record numbers.

]]>Pratap ChatterjeeTue, 10 Mar 2015 17:25:57 +0000Papa John’s Forced to Pay Millions in Workers’ Stolen Wageshttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17726/papa_johns_wage_theft/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17726/papa_johns_wage_theft/New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has been hitting wage thieves hard this year. In February, his office won a nearly $800,000 judgment for employees of Emstar, a Papa John’s franchisee in Brooklyn and Queens. Last week, Schneiderman won another suit against a different Papa John’s franchisee, New Majority Holdings LLC, this time for over $2 million. According to the New York Post, Schneiderman may now be setting his sights on Papa John’s itself, testing the recent NLRB ruling that parent companies can be held responsible for the labor violations of franchises.]]>Kevin SolariTue, 10 Mar 2015 17:01:23 +0000With Gov. Scott Walker’s Approval in Wisconsin, Half of U.S. Now Under Right to Workhttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17721/right_to_work_united_states/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17721/right_to_work_united_states/With his signature Monday on a bill passed almost purely on party-line votes, Republican Governor Scott Walker made Wisconsin the 25th state to adopt a “right-to-work” law, dividing the country in half between “anti-union” and “union-friendly” labor law regimes.

It is the first such law passed since Indiana and Michigan in 2012 made historic inroads into the northern industrial states, but it may be just the beginning of attacks on worker rights in many states this year, including roughly a dozen potential right-to-work initiatives (one of which prompted weekend protest rallies in Charlestown, West Virginia, of around 6,000 union members and supporters from around the state). Wisconsin Republicans, as well as conservatives in other states, are planning to push through other laws that would drive down construction workers’ wages (such as eliminating state “prevailing wage” laws and project labor agreements, both of which guarantee quality and performance on public works and the prevailing, typically union-scale, pay for workers).

]]>David MobergMon, 09 Mar 2015 23:26:08 +0000With the Passage of Right to Work, Workers Need a New Game Plan in Wisconsinhttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17717/with_the_passage_of_right_to_work_workers_need_a_new_game_plan_in_wisconsin/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17717/with_the_passage_of_right_to_work_workers_need_a_new_game_plan_in_wisconsin/(Editors note: Gov. Scott Walker signed into law right-to-work legislation in Wisconsin this morning. This essay was written before the bill's passage. It first appeared at Jacobin.)

In 2011, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker introduced the innocuously named “Budget Repair Bill.” The sweeping legislation contained both fiscal measures—reduced support for public education, state Medicaid programs, and regulatory agencies, as well as lower property and capital taxes—and a labor law amendment that all but outlawed collective bargaining for public sector employees and created new barriers to union organizing.

After decades of neoliberal advance and the emergence of the Tea Party, none of this—even in a state with a progressive history—was especially surprising. But this time it sparked dogged resistance: a two-and-a-half-week occupation of the State Capitol, demonstrations topping one hundred thousand people, and “sick out” work stoppages by teachers across the state.

When the capitol was cleared, however, the mobilization that began with the demand to “kill the bill” was funneled into the effort to electorally oust Walker. In the 2012 recall, in a replay of the 2010 gubernatorial election, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett lost to Walker—by an even greater margin than before.

]]>Eleni Schirmer and Michael BilleauxMon, 09 Mar 2015 17:30:12 +0000How Chicago’s Grassroots Movements Defeated Rahm Emanuel at the Pollshttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17712/chicago_grassroots_movements/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17712/chicago_grassroots_movements/On Tuesday, February 24, Jesús “Chuy” García shook up Chicago, and the nation, by forcing a key pro-corporate Democratic Party figurehead and the mayor of the 1%, Rahm Emanuel, into a run-off election for mayor of Chicago. The win has unleashed incredible excitement in Chicago—and more than a few questions about how this runoff was achieved. Many observers’ first instinct might be to ask, "What changed in Chicago?” But for those looking for lessons in the grassroots-powered victory, a more instructive question would be, "What was built—and how"?

Tuesday’s success is bigger than any one organization. What Chicago’s various social movements have built did not materialize over the course of one election cycle and cannot be understood as just a set of electoral strategies, clever tactics or shrewd messaging. For years, Chicago has been an epicenter of militant, grassroots organizing that has come to deeply resonate with working class families. A long-term transformative vision lies at the heart of this organizing, taking aim at oppressive systems and corporate interests that exploit and divide people along lines of class and race.

]]>Amisha PatelThu, 05 Mar 2015 15:49:43 +0000SEIU Local 73 Staffer On Mayoral Neutrality: We Have a “Good Working Relationship” with Rahm Emanuelhttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17710/seiu_local_73_rahm_emanuel/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17710/seiu_local_73_rahm_emanuel/Much of Chicago was surprised to see Mayor Rahm Emanuel forced into a runoff election with Jesús "Chuy" García last week, and the city's labor movement was no exception.

The vast majority of Chicago labor—including parts of the movement's progressive wing like UNITE HERE Local 1—decided to continue backing the mayor, despite what many critics consider to be a strong anti-union and pro-corporate governing record. Of the city's major unions, only the Chicago Teachers Union and SEIU Health Care Illinois & Indiana (HCII) took a strong line against Emanuel, committing significant financial resources and members to García's campaign.

That's what he told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last week. The governor said that because he destroyed public sector labor rights in Wisconsin after 100,000 union supporters protested in Madison he could defeat ISIS as President of the United States.

]]>Leo Gerard, United Steelworkers PresidentWed, 04 Mar 2015 16:26:05 +0000With 82% of Chicago Votes for Paid Sick Leave, Labor Groups Call for Actionhttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17705/chicago_paid_sick_leave/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17705/chicago_paid_sick_leave/On February 25, nearly 82 percent of voters in Chicago’s mayoral election cast their vote in favor of a non-binding referendum asking whether workers in Chicago should have the right to paid sick days. Now a coalition of labor groups are using the coming run-off election between Mayor Rahm Emanuel and challenger Jesús “Chuy” García to try to drag long-stalled legislation on sick days out of the city council committee and make it into law.]]>Yana KunichoffTue, 03 Mar 2015 20:03:56 +0000After Rejecting Proposed Contract, University of Toronto Teaching Assistants Go On Strikehttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17704/university_of_toronto_strike/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17704/university_of_toronto_strike/A version of this post first appeared at rankandfile.ca.

On Friday evening, University of Toronto graduate student teaching assistants (TAs) overwhelmingly voted at a mass meeting of over 1,000 people to reject a tentative agreement reached between their union, CUPE Local 3902, and the university’s administration earlier that day. Approximately 6,000 Unit 1 TAs are now on strike and pickets began on Monday.

Contract faculty at U of T who are part of Local 3902 Unit 3 reached a tentative agreement on February 18. The agreement was presented for a recommendation of ratification on March 2, and will take place over the course of the week. The key issue for Unit 3 was job security, and Local 3902 Chair Dr. Erin Black says the tentative agreement addresses this.

Having received a Presidential Medal in January for its efforts to combat modern-day slavery, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, or CIW, and its Campaign For Fair Food hit the road this month as part of its “Boot the Braids” campaign against Wendy’s. The tour spanned colleges and universities throughout the Northeast and Midwest to educate students, as well as create and solidify campus campaigns aimed at pressuring Wendy’s to join the CIW’s Fair Food Program, the only industry-wide social responsibility program in U.S. agriculture.

Wendy’s is the last holdout of the big five fast food corporations—McDonald’s, Burger King, Yum Brands! and Subway—from the program, which has extended the Fair Food Code of Conduct to more than 30,000 workers, who make up over 90 percent of the Florida tomato industry. The many improbable successes of the CIW offer important lessons for countless other campaigns, especially those by low-wage workers in other industries.

The strength of the CIW, and perhaps the reason why corporations are treating it differently than the fast food workers, comes down to the organization’s sophisticated organizing strategy.

]]>Geoff GilbertMon, 02 Mar 2015 20:00:44 +0000In Wisconsin’s Battle Against Right to Work, Labor Goes Through the Motionshttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17703/wisconsin_right_to_work/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17703/wisconsin_right_to_work/Over two thousand angry workers marched around the Wisconsin state capitol on a frigid Saturday afternoon February 28 to denounce Wisconsin governor and leading GOP presidential candidate Scott Walker’s latest round of union-busting legislation. But a bitter sense of inevitably was thick in the air.

It’s a bitterness to which the Left has become accustomed. And if organized labor continues to make the same mistakes they have made in Wisconsin over the last four years, the defeats will likely keep coming.

]]>David GoodnerMon, 02 Mar 2015 18:34:34 +0000With State Senate’s Approval, Right to Work Looks All But Certain in Wisconsinhttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17698/scott_walker_right_to_work_bill/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17698/scott_walker_right_to_work_bill/MADISON, WISCONSIN—Against the wishes of thousands of angry constituents in two days of protests outside the state capitol building this week, the Wisconsin state senate late Wednesday night voted 17 to 15 in favor of a “right-to-work” law. Only one Republican, a former union member from the northern woodlands of the state, joined all Democratic senators in voting against the anti-union law that the Republican leadership has rushed through an “extraordinary session.”

If the Assembly approves the bill next week—and with a GOP margin of 63 to 36, larger than in the Senate, it is almost certainly expected to do so—Gov. Scott Walker has promised to sign it, giving a former union stronghold the dubious distinction of becoming the 25th state to pass such legislation.

]]>David MobergFri, 27 Feb 2015 22:12:42 +0000Wisconsin Union-busting Gov. Scott Walker Says Fighting Union Members Is Like Fighting ISIShttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17696/wisconsin_union_busting_gov._governor_scott_walker_compares_union_members_t/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17696/wisconsin_union_busting_gov._governor_scott_walker_compares_union_members_t/Every governor that wants to be president needs to exhibit their foreign policy street cred. Sarah Palin's attempts compelled the world to learn the proximity of Wasilla, Alaska, to Russia in 2008. Scott Walker made a similarly telling gaffe this week at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland.

Walker, not grasping that his presidential aspirations mean people will pay attention to what he says, compared the Wisconsin protests of 2011 to the Islamic State, or ISIS, surprising no one with the level of disdain he feels for public employees.

]]>Kevin SolariFri, 27 Feb 2015 16:31:45 +0000Holyoke Teachers Union President: ‘We Will Not Let Them Take Over Our Schools’http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17694/holyoke_teachers_union_president_we_will_not_let_them_take_over_our_schools/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17694/holyoke_teachers_union_president_we_will_not_let_them_take_over_our_schools/Holyoke, a small city of 40,000 in Western Massachusetts, has become a major battleground in the conflict playing out across the nation between democratic control of public schools and top-down “education reform.”

Residents of this working-class city of color have banded with the teachers union to fight back against what they see as misguided attempts by the state to wrest away local control of their schools and impose reforms. Now, the community-labor alliance faces its biggest test yet: a threatened takeover of the entire district.

]]>Mekdes FergusonFri, 27 Feb 2015 16:00:05 +0000At 100 Colleges Around the Country, Adjuncts Take Action to Demand an End to Precarity and Low Payhttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17692/adjunct_walkout/
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17692/adjunct_walkout/Yesterday, adjunct faculty members at over 100 college campuses carried out coordinated demonstrations as part of National Adjunct Walkout Day. Adjuncts aimed to draw attention to low pay, exploitative working conditions, and a lack of job security. They organized walkouts, “teach-ins,” and rallies to push for part-time academic workers’ rights and greater visibility.

While specific goals varied among activists, most adjuncts organizing around the event are demanded better pay, more job security, and access to benefits.

Late last year, as reported by Steven Greenhouse and Hiroko Tabuchi in the New York Times, closed-circuit camera footage emerged of a female union leader being swarmed and assaulted, only three months after a female union president was severely beaten over the head with an iron rod. Both incidents occurred at factories owned by the Azim Group, which reports employing 27,000 workers. Despite allegations by Workers United, the main union for garment workers in the U.S., of company involvement in the attacks, Azim could not be proven to be responsible.

However, according to Greenhouse and Tabuchi’s story, the VF Corporation, producer of the Wrangler, Nautica, Timberland and North Face brands, informed Azim it would terminate their relationship unless it took strong steps by December 31 to guarantee worker rights and ensure violence against union leaders would cease. Azim’s agreement to cover both the medical bills of the beaten union leader and the full back pay of several union officials returning to work, along with several other measures, seemed to pacify Western companies and prevent contract termination with Azim as of February 18.